Canberra's Premier Lite, Jon Stanhope, who wants to be the first to add the dry rot of a Bill of Rights to an Australian constitution, is going to buy a cartoon-in-bronze of Prime Minister John Howard on behalf of the people of Canberra, using their money of course. He thinks this burlesque of Howard's defence policy is commentary of lasting value to Australian culture.

Mr Stanhope said the statue was a "significant and serious work of art by a very significant Australian artist" and it deserved to be added to Canberra's permanent public artworks.

Meanwhile, his Chief Fire Officer Peter Lucas-Smith has just confessed he did not believe Canberra could be directly threatened when bushfires to the west of the capital ignited. So he told his troops not to bother putting them out when that could have been achieved by ten people with buckets. Canberra's prevailing winds come from the west.

Henny's ideologues, our Gastropod, Stanhope and Lucas-Smith still have their jobs. It must be Christmas.